{"id":3587,"date":"2021-06-23T08:39:06","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T08:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/?p=3587"},"modified":"2021-06-23T08:39:06","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T08:39:06","slug":"who-says-delta-is-the-fastest-and-could-be-the-most-lethal-covid-19-variant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/23\/who-says-delta-is-the-fastest-and-could-be-the-most-lethal-covid-19-variant\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO says delta is the fastest and could be the most lethal Covid-19 variant"},"content":{"rendered":"

The highly contagious delta variant is the fastest and fittest coronavirus strain yet, and it will \u201cpick off\u201d the most vulnerable people, especially in places with low\u00a0Covid-19<\/a>\u00a0vaccination rates, World Health Organization officials warned Monday.<\/p>\n

Delta, first identified in India, has the potential \u201cto be more lethal because it\u2019s more efficient in the way it transmits between humans and it will eventually find those vulnerable individuals who will become severely ill, have to be hospitalized and potentially die,\u201d Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO\u2019s health emergencies program, said during a news conference.<\/p>\n

\n
Ryan said world leaders and public health officials can help defend the most vulnerable through the donation and distribution of Covid vaccines.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe can protect those vulnerable people, those front-line workers,\u201d Ryan said, \u201cand the fact that we haven\u2019t, as Director-General [Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus] has said, again and again, is a catastrophic moral failure at a global level.\u201d<\/p>\n

The WHO said Friday that delta is becoming\u00a0the dominant variant<\/a>\u00a0of the disease worldwide.<\/p>\n

The agency declared delta a\u00a0\u201cvariant of concern\u201d<\/a>\u00a0last month. A variant can be labeled as \u201cof concern\u201d if it has been shown to be more contagious, more deadly or more resistant to current vaccines and treatments,\u00a0according to the health organization.<\/a><\/p>\n

Delta is now replacing alpha, the highly contagious variant that swept across Europe and later the U.S. earlier this year, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia, said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n

\n
Studies suggest it is around 60% more transmissible than alpha, which was more contagious than the original strain that emerged from Wuhan, China, in late 2019.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe need to vaccinate now. Get everyone vaccinated now,\u201d Offit said.<\/p>\n

Delta has now spread to 92 countries, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO\u2019s technical lead for Covid, said Monday. It now makes up at least 10% of all new cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is on its way to becoming the dominant variant in the nation.<\/p>\n

The United Kingdom recently saw delta become the dominant strain there, surpassing its native alpha variant, which was first detected in the country last fall. The delta variant now makes up more than 60% of new cases in the U.K.<\/p>\n

WHO officials have said there were reports that the delta variant also causes more severe symptoms, but that more research is needed to confirm those conclusions. Still,\u00a0there are signs<\/a>\u00a0the delta strain could provoke different symptoms than other variants.<\/p>\n

No variant has really found the combination of high transmissibility and lethality, but delta is \u201cthe most able and fastest and fittest of those viruses,\u201d WHO officials said Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis particular delta variant is faster, it is fitter, it will pick off the more vulnerable more efficiently than previous variants, and therefore if there are people left without vaccination, they remain even at further risk,\u201d Ryan said.<\/p>\n

Van Kerkhove said, \u201cunfortunately we don\u2019t yet have the vaccines in the right places to protect people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

The WHO has been urging wealthy nations, including the U.S. to donate doses. The Biden administration earlier Monday detailed where it will send 55 million vaccine doses, the majority of which will be distributed through COVAX, the WHO-backed immunization program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese vaccines are highly effective against severe disease and death. That is what they are intended for, and that is what they need to be used for\u201d Van Kerkhove said. \u201cThis is what COVAX and WHO and all of our partners have been advocating for, that these vaccines reach people most at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Source: CNBC<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The highly contagious delta variant is the fastest and fittest coronavirus strain yet, and it will \u201cpick off\u201d the most vulnerable people, especially in places with low\u00a0Covid-19\u00a0vaccination rates, World Health Organization officials warned Monday. Delta, first identified in India, has the potential \u201cto be more lethal because it\u2019s more efficient in the way it transmits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[21,683,684,685],"class_list":["post-3587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-diseases","category-professional","tag-covid-19","tag-delta-variant","tag-fastest","tag-lethal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3589,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587\/revisions\/3589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}